Past, present, future

Portraits of bookworms, Dungscape opening event, and future plans... more pictures less words!

It was wonderful to be surrounded by such a handsome crowd of dear friends and family for the opening of my solo show Dungscape at Knepp. Thank you if you came - if you couldn’t, you were missed - I hope you can enjoy a flavour from these very short videos:

It was an extra treat to have several ecologists there who know the estate, and the insect life featured in Dungscape, intimately. Dr Erica McAlister gave a fantastic opening talk, complete with a tray of flies:

With a bonus swim in the sea at Worthing, and a dance under the stars at the Knepp Friday night BBQ, the weekend couldn’t have been more perfect.

Although Dungscape at Knepp technically finishes on 6th September, it is open, free entry, 9-5pm until I go on 8th to take it from there to London.

Sketching people reading

Bookworms tend to congregate round a swimming pool, like sitting ducks waiting to be drawn! When sketching from life, the way the reader’s gaze moves over a printed page, and the bulk of a book shifting from side to side in their hands keeps your observation sharp. The blocks of light and shade on the surfaces of the book, and its intersection with their fingers lend a timelessness to the scene. Somehow a Kindle or a phone is much less visually appealing to me.

Twice in France when I inveigled an obliging reader to sit for a portrait, Izzi appeared, sketchbook in hand, to take advantage of the modelling session. These two beautiful pen sketches of Daisy and Liv below are hers, the next two are mine from a slightly different angle.

And here of course is Ted, whom I have drawn countless times before… resplendent in white kerchief, ribbon under chin, shades, and plaits. You may also spot Ted and Daisy in the video above, gleefully following my invitation to touch the Dungscape paintings. If you listen to Nottingham Uni radio station during term time you might catch Ted’s excellent show. I feel so lucky to witness the intertwining stories of these lives.

If you are interested in trying or practicing quick portrait sketching, I cannot recommend these monthly sessions enough. They are convivial, untutored, with great music and a gloriously bohemian collection of participants who take it in turns to model. The next one is tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon:

What next?

I have so enjoyed printing the linocuts for Dungscape that I’ve signed up to Spike Print Studio for two days a week. I would love to explore linocut more as a medium for portraiture. Here’s an old one from the archives:

Returning to portraiture in oils, I am experimenting with applying the blue outline (that often bounds my sketched figures, throwing the warmth of the skin forward) with a brush. As it happens, there was a camera in my left hand at the moment when the possibility occurred to me:

We have one more wafer-thin holiday (3 big birthdays to celebrate in Porto, with the readers’ parents et al), then my first priority is to clear the commissions that have been calling politely from the studio easels for many months.

I’m delighted to say that as well as the Dungscape oil paintings and sketches being on show at the Society of Wildlife Artists exhibition, my two linocuts have been juried in via the open call. So they will see the light of day in London in early October. More on that next time.

Then another magnum opus hopefully. Something a bit darker and more political. Although it’s all political really.

Have a brilliant weekend, thank you for being here,

Gxxx